he nation, and then in ever-widening circles
of humanity.(110) Yet the covenant with Abraham was only the precursor of
the covenant concluded with Israel through Moses on Mt. Sinai, by which
the Jewish people were consecrated to be the eternal guardians of the
divine covenant with mankind, until the time when it shall encompass all
the nations.(111)

3. In this covenant of Sinai, referred to by the prophet Elijah, and
afterward by many others, the free moral relationship of man to God is
brought out; this forms the characteristic feature of a revealed religion
in contradistinction to natural religion. In paganism the Deity formed an
inseparable part of the nation itself; but through the covenant God became
a free moral power, appealing for allegiance to the spiritual nature of
man. This idea of the covenant suggested to the prophet Hosea the analogy
with the conjugal relation,(112) a conception of love and loyalty which
became typical of the tender relation of God to Israel through the
centuries. In days of direst woe Jeremiah and the book of Deuteronomy
invested this covenant with the character of indestructibility and
inviolability.(113) God's covenant with Israel is everlasting like that
with the heaven and the earth; it is ever to be renewed in the hearts of
the people, but never to be replaced by a new covenant. Upon this eternal
renewal of the covenant with God rests the unique history of Judaism, its
wondrous preservation and regeneration throughout the ages. Paul's
doctrine of a new covenant to replace the old(114) conflicts with the very
idea of the covenant, and even with the words of Jeremiah.

4. The Israelitish nation inherited from Abraham, according to the
priestly Code, the rite of _circumcision_ as a "sign of the
covenant,"(115) but under the prophetic influence, with its loathing of
all sacrificial blood, the _Sabbath_ was placed in the foreground as "the
sign between God and Israel."(116) In ancient Israel and in the Judean
commonwealth the Abrahamitic rite formed the initiation into the
nationality for aliens and slaves, by which they were made full-fledged
Jews. With the dispersion of the Jewish people over the globe, and the
influence of Hellenism, Judaism created a propaganda in favor of a
world-wide religion of "God-fearing" men pledged to the observance of the
Noahitic or humanitarian laws. Rabbinism in Palestine called such a one
_Ger Toshab_--sojourner, or semi-proselyte; while the full prosel